event

TedXATX was the hashtag. The event was a “tedxatx rejects” party following TedXAustin held Saturday, Feb 20, 2010 at Conjunctured Coworking Space in East Austin, Texas. Some of the people seen in the video includeSunni Brown who was a major force behind TedX Austin seen chatting with Charles Knickerbocker, Jon Lebkowski organizer of the monster Plutopia event at SXSW and his coworker Maggie Duval, Dusty Regan (who gave the Austin Blogger a heads up via the #tedxatx twitter stream), David Walker, Sherry Lowry, Kristin Moses, webjournalist Mike Melansun of ReadWriteWeb, Cesar Torres, SparkNight’s Shelly Leonard who can plan your “surprise date from start to finish”, Challenge Games Christian Primozich, Paul Terry Walhus (who shot this video) of Texas Coworking and many more.

If you spot someone we’ve missed be sure to jot something in the comments on this blog post.

The UT football team and UT Women’s volleyball team showed up for “fan appreciation day” at the University of Texas Greogory Gym, on Sat, Aug 22, 2009. AustinBlogger Paul Terry Walhus meets up with Mack Brown and talks to some nice fans from Waco while waiting in line with 2,000 plus other fans. Part 5 of a 5 part video.

Door64 had a party at Austin 360 Condos on Thursday, August 20.Â It was packed.Â It was a $10 cover and 2 drink tickets in a gorgeous setting on the 9th floor where the pool and observation deck are located.Â Since it was a hot, steamy Austin night and there was a “no drinks” sign at the entrance to the pool, most people crowded into the long, narrow inside space where it was cool.Â It’s quite the luxury condo, with a mini movie theater at one end of the space and a bar at the other end.Â Matt Genovese, how did you swing such a cool venue? By the way, you don’t need pronounce the e at the end of Matt’s last name.

We weren’t able to interview much because of the noise level, so it’s mostly just pictures of people at the event.Â Maybe you can spot yourself if you were there. It was a great networking event, I ran in to Heather Havenwood, who did my SXSW interviews, and Meg Strout who was acompanied by a power auto seller Aaron Smith with Motorphilia, and Conversion Scientist Brian MasseyÂ to name a few.Â Â I told Meg to check out Aardvark, because she asked me what was hot right now and I just had a foray in to this new “ask your social network” app yesterday.Â

You can also see this video on Metacafe, Blip.tv and Veoh and I encourage youÂ to rate it up and review it if you like it.Â And if you’re in the video, drop me a note and I’ll include you in the blog post, (note at how many minutes in to the video you appear).

Conjunctured Co-Working, 1309 E 7th Street, Austin, TX celebrated their first anniversary with a party on Saturday, August 14, 2009. This is the video taken by @springnet at the party, it’s about 38 minutes long and their are shorter versions available on youtube, metacafe, etc.

One of the greatest benefits of a Content Management System like Drupal, is the ability to separate the visual presentation (Theme) layer from the site logic. This is accomplished by placing your theme files in site/all/themes. The rest is up to your abilities to write & edit PHP template files, use hooks, and customize CSS for use in customizing the presentation of your site. The callbacks may seem a bit labyrinthine, but by making a sub-theme you can get well on your way.

Sound tough? It is not.

Come out next Month to learn how to get started! Lauren N. Roth will be giving short presentation to get you going and recommends bringing a Localhost installation on your own computer. Even if you are an experienced Drupal developer, write modules, and have been pimping out sites for years, let’s get together, discuss best practices and demystify the design process. If you write modules, some themer needs to handle your output after they enable your module, so it would be fantastic to build a little elegance into the module itself!

Come out, ask questions, share your experiences and help others make some amazing Drupal sites!In the meantime, go to

Description

Ever since GeekAustin announced the “Introduction to Drupal” workshop, we’ve been getting emails asking: “So what’s the big deal with Drupal?” Sounds like an excuse for a party? Yes!

We’ll have drinks out front and panels in back. We’ll be bringing in local experts to discuss and debate topics such as: “Why should I use Drupal instead of WordPress?”, “Isn’t theming hard with Drupal?”, and “Why would the city use Plone instead of Drupal?”. Ok, well maybe not the last panel.

More discussion with Dr DD Faye about the twestival.com on Feb 12 in Austin and around the world. One in six people worldwide lack adequate drinking water – 1.1 billion people – and twestival.com and Dr Faye are both part of the solution to providing clean drinking water to the world’s population.

Kimberlie Dykeman interviews Thom Singer at the Austin TechCrunch party, produced by austinlifestyles.com Paul Terry Walhus. Thom has written three books: “Some Assembly Required: How to Make, Grow and Keep Your Business Relationships”, “The ABC’s of Networking”, and “Some Assembly Required: A Networking Guide for Women”… which are available at Amazon.com. The books are full of tips to assist business professionals find unique ways to stand out from their competition and to build a network of contacts that will lead to more business.

Kimberlie Dykeman interviews Mark Spilitro, CEO of iKnowWare.com which helps connect you to your business resources anytime, anywhere. Paul Terry Walhus produced this for AustinLifestyles.com. You can get a secure web based view of your business in your language on your mobile device.

TechCrunch rocked the high style Pangea Lounge in Austin’s trendy 4th Street District on Sept 25, 2008 with a roomful of startups, entrepreneurs and VCs. Kimberlie Dykeman did about 20 interviews, and these are a few of the first to be released. More will be released later.

Austin Time Exchange & github
http://austinblogger.com/blog/ video – Open source currency – Solving social problems with Intentional Economics Tom Brown is a co-worker who has deployed OpenID on multiple high profile nonprofit websites. HeresTomWithTheWeather is contributing Ruby on Rails code to projects hosted on github. Tom is the co-founder of SuperBorrowNet. Rich Vazquez is a board member of the Austin Time Exchange Network, longtime editor of LasCulturas.com and currently works in software security and web programming.

Andrew Donoho, Web Theorist with IBM’s Emerging Internet Technology Team, has a long history working with both web standards and implementations. He was an early participant in crafting XHTML v1.0 and v1.1 and SVG v1.0. He has been creating and pushing implementations of the bi-directional web since 1999 and is extending that idea to building a Co-Web with a scalable UI for the last 18 months. He is trained in experimental physics with a degree from the University of Texas at Austin. He still lives in Austin with his wife.

Bill Leake has been involved in driving provable revenues through internet marketing techniques since the early 1990s when, as part of the management team at Power Computing, he built the first company to sell $1 million of product over the internet. Bill has guided Apogee Search from inception to its current position as the largest search engine marketing firm in the Southwest, and one of the 20 largest in North America.

Bill gave this talk to the OneWebDay crowd at Cafe Caffeine on Monday Sept 22, 2008 and has some interesting asides on the economy and the political scene.

Jon Lebkowsky takes us on a trip down Internet memory lane and recalls how a couple of guys from the Farm in Tennessee (fig and tex) – who I know well – landed at Stewart Brands Whole Earth Catalog in Sausalito and started the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link) which turned out to be a seminal incubating ground for many of the ideas of the modern day Internet. He also traces the beginnings of blogging with BoingBoing and fringeware in Austin, Texas. It’s a fascinating story about the beginnings and evolution of blogging and social networking. This event was a special jelly coworking event at Cafe Caffeine in Austin, Texas on Monday, September 22, 2008. Maggie Duval was a chief instigator of this event (http://livelyhoods.com)

The Internet as key enabling technology for the emergence of the new global sustainability economy

David’s Bio: David Armistead has been involved in business and organization development, strategic planning, and future studies projects since the early 1980s, and has worked directly with major culture leaders, multinational firms and state and federal government, and also high tech manufacturing and small business.

The Web â€“ Returning to Its Roots: It isnâ€™t Just for Marketing Anymore

CJ’s Bio: CJ Romberger founded Wildwood Interactive, a premier web development firm, in 2000. Her experience includes systems analysis, website and database development, computer programming and training, quality assurance, and product and application development. Sheâ€™s worked at companies like Fisher-Rosemont, BMC Software, and Human Code, and has led development teams for large eCommerce sites like RX.com and Leapfrog.com. CJ graduated with a 4.0 GPA from Texas State University and holds a BBA in Computer Information Systems. She writes a column called “Gadget Girl” for Austin Woman Magazine and in her spare time plays music in her recording studio and plays with new technology.

â€œLaid backâ€. Thatâ€™s how Mashable top dog Pete Cashmore described Austin, Texas in an interview with AustinLifestylesÂ at the Summermash party at Buffalo Billiards in the heart of Austinâ€™s 6th Street live music district.Â Mark â€œRizznâ€ Hopkins of Mashable described Austin as â€œcomfortable and intimate, you had no problems striking up a conversation.â€Â

Hereâ€™s the list with a few excerpts from the blog entry at Mashable:

Austin 3.0 – A website designed to give the â€œyounger Austin Geek a place to see what is going on in Austin.â€

Austin Startup – Austin Startup is simply a news site that chronicles the goings ons and creation of new tech sector business in the Austin area.

AustinCast – This site is a frequently updated hub for video and audio interviews of local area movers and shakers in the technology scene. Heâ€™s published over 100 video interviews with the likes of Veronica Belmont, Pete Cashmore, Zadi Diaz, Cali Lewis, Lindsay Campbell, and Leah Culver as well as a number of local heroes to the Austin scene.

Austin360 – This is the official New Media offering from Austinâ€™s reigning Old Media institution, the Austin-American Statesman.

GeekAustin – Probably one of Austinâ€™s oldest tech blogs, LinearBâ€™ and Orion have been chronicling the gaming, business and tech communities of Austin since 2000.

Michelleâ€™s Blog -Â . . .Â sheâ€™s a very active leader and figurehead to the new, young Austin Tech community, and has her hands in just about everything.Â Her personal blog reflects all the myriad of ventures sheâ€™s involved in there.

Josh Dilworth – Josh is over at PR group Porter Novelli, based in their Austin office. Amongst all his many work related projects like SXSW, he has quite visible presence amongst those in the online Semantic and AI community as well as an avid participant in a number of widely used social media tools. I was recently a guest on a podcast of his, Falkenâ€™s Maze.

John Erik Metcalf- John Erik Metcalf is a major figure in the Austin scene as well, as heâ€™s a co-founder in one of the townâ€™s two co-working spaces: Conjunctured

Social Media Club Austin – The site describes itself as â€œpart think tank, part curiosity, all new mediaâ€ and is a repository for all that is going on in the â€œbusiness networking eventâ€ scene for the Austin area.

Some Assembly Required – a self-described â€œbusiness development and networking blogâ€ authored by Thom Singer.

The Jeff Beckham Weblog – Jeff is an Austin area blogger who focuses his posts on the evolution of media, specifically in relationship to how the Internet is forcing transformation on not just media industries but â€œthe word itself.â€

Door64 Blog – The blog for Door64, the forum and community portal for the Austin-area tech community.

IfÂ you an Austin area blogger and want to be added to the OPML file email Mark at Mashable to be included in the next version of the list.

Lindsay Campbell did hundreds of episodes of the insanely popular Wallstrip and is now doing something totally new and different, a show about news and politics. We luckily catch her in an interview on day 1 of SXSW. There will be blog is Lindsay’s clip from sxsw which includes two cuts of austincasts Paul Terry Walhus talking about Matt Mullenwegg and “wholesome, family podcasts”. “MobLogic shamelessly pimps fellow bloggers in a pathetically transparent attempt to promote itself” it says on moblogic.tv’s episode page.

Norris Church Mailer is the author of a previous novel, Windchill Summer. She was raised in Arkansas and now lives on Cape Cod. Her husband of thirty-one years, Norman Mailer, died just days after this talk.

Were you at SXSW and want to keep the experience going and stay in touch with others you met there? Here’s how! I put out a tweet to request that anyone in our “network” who has a del.icio.us account and is willing to share their del.icio.us “name,” to please send it my way and I will compile the list. This way, we can add each other to our del.icio.us networks. One of the drawbacks of all these social networking sites, is the separate interfaces, usernames and such. We are all hoping for the ultimate Mashup of social networking one day.

I’m very excited to get this ball rolling and even more excited to explore all the great bookmarks that our friends who are hot on sxsw are sharing. If you would like to be included, just post a comment here with your del.icio.us “name” and I will add you to our network or send a direct message to http://twitter.com/sxswtwit . Then, just follow these easy steps:

Go todel.icio.us (sign up for an account if you don’t have one already)

That’s where the magic happens. There you see all the bookmarks shared by everyone in the network, which can be a little messy OR you can look over at the right. There you can click on each member’s name and look at his/her individual bookmarks. You can even add each member to your own del.icio.us network. As more members join this sxswtwit del.icio.us network, you’ll see them added.

Right now, the only member is http://del.icio.us/springnet (me) but that will hopefully change soon. Join now!

Great idea you say? Well, all the credit goes to GeekyMomma who thought it up for her edtech network and the above is practically word for word from her blog post.

Live Earth started in Asia with an ancient Aboriginal instrument. Then a holographic image of Al Gore appeared on stage. Then it moved on to London and Madonna. Concerts in Sydney, Tokyo and Shanghai kicked off 22 hours of music by more than 150 artists in a round-the-globe series of shows designed to raise awareness of climate change.

Metallica, the Police and Kanye West were among the top-billed acts listed for the biggest concerts, in London and New Jersey. re’s campaign to force global warming onto the international political stage inspired the event.

Appearing on the Tokyo stage as a hologram, the former vice president called global warming the greatest challenge facing our planet but told concert goers they could solve it by acting together.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore joined Live Earthers in London and Hamburg live via satellite from a special event on the capitol lawn in Washington D.C., where he asked his globe-spanning audience to join him in signing the Live Earth 7-Point Pledge.

Al Gore quoted an old African proverb: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together…Well, we need to go far, quickly.”

Gore was framed by a view of the Capitol building at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian and stood before an at-capacity, overflowing crowd who turned out to see Gore despite stifling heat and a last-minute announcement.

Following his remarks, Gore introduced one of America’s favorite country pairs, Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who performed the duet “We Shall be Free.”

Mr. Gore will immediately depart D.C. to catch a train for the next installment in our series, “Mr. Gore Goes to New York”.

Taking the stage at Wembley Stadium Duran Duran frontman Simon Le Bon made a joke about some of the acts who had to travel using their own planes to the show.

“Before we start everyone who did not arrive in a private jet put your hands in the air,” asked the singer, raising his own along with the crowds’.

Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards rolled in to Scholz Garden, in the shadow of the State Capital, on a hot, blistering 90 plus degree day in downtown Austin, Texas. Youthful looking, expressive, he gave a clean, crisp speech opposing the war and full of ideals about ending hunger and illiteracy around the world. He’s determined to bring America back. And he mentioned that Bush was the only world leader not to commit to cutting back on global warming at last weeks European summit.

Edwards said, “Here’s an idea. Suppose instead of America spending $500 billion in Iraq, America led an international effort to make primary school education available to 100 million children in the world who have no education whatsoever.” [Applause]

Scholz Garden is a populist playground, a favorite place for liberal politicians like Hightower, like it says in this Austin Chronicle article:

“That’s how Billy Lee Brammer sets the scene in The Gay Place,his true-fiction account of Texas politics and the boozy courtin’ and lawmakin’ that went on under the trees at Scholz Garten (now casually renamed “Garden”) in the Fifties. It was the one place in town where an under-21 Eddie Wilson could score a beer without getting hassled. Scholz was destined for the ever-after indeed. The German-owned gathering place on San Jacinto was the watering hole of choice for every liberal politician, writer, musician, and artist in town.”

I had the chicken fried chicken with a potato double play: German potatoes and fries. I got close enough to Edwards to get some real good snapshots which you can see here (feel free to reproduce on your blog or website with attribution):

The Gingerman was the site for the first Austin WordPress meetup. About a dozen folks showed up including a local member of the WordPress team who passed out cool t shirts.

I wasn’t able to stay long so I’m hoping to pick up the details of the last part of the meeting off others blogs.

Lorin Rivers has done a masterful job of stretching wordpress to it’s limit with his current project. He extended the mysql back end of wordpress to do a much better job at handling large numbers of users, making it more suitable to host a large community. Keep at it Lorin, you can go places with this if you open source it.

Andy Skelton, one of the folks at the meetup said on his blog today: “Don’t ask me why I didn’t do it first. Paul Menard is doing a fine job starting an Austin WordPress Meetup. He listed it on Upcoming and Meetup and the crowds are growing.”

Here are some cell phone pictures I took of the WordPress meetup at the Gingerman showing the attendees and lots of beer glasses.

The talk was an interesting one about where social media is headed and especially the ways that small businesses can use social media to their advantage. Twitter, Flickr, Zooomr, MySpace, Facebook, blogging, videoblogging, podcasting, UStream.tv, Digg, etc., are all tools that all businesses ought to be aware of at a minimum and using to follow the conversations that are taking place about their company and products.

UStream.tv featured prominently in the talk and there were three separate UStream.tv feeds running live while the talk was going on in addition to a back channel IRC and interaction through things like Twitter.

With the popularity of Justin.tv, UStream.tv especailly seems to be of interest these days. UStream.tv allows anyone to stream their life or real time video via cams and is potentially bringing a new realtime nature to social media. Jeremiah and Scoble spent much of the Web 2.0 conference broadcasting in real time through UStream.tv.

The Evolution of Blogging, Cat Version — So blogging has evolved once more, and the talk of the town – or at least the talk of Austin, Texas during the SXSW Conference – is Twitter, that increasingly popular text messaging/blogging service from the makers of Odeo.

The Several Habits of Wildly Successful Twitter Users — Twitter is a deceptively simple utility. That said, Twitter isn’t for everyone. In fact it’s probably not even for half of everyone. But for those that have the patience to find their personal sweet spot, Twitter can be quite good indeed.

5 Ways to Use Twitter for Good — I’m a big fan of Twitter, and have been using it heavily since the outset. For those of you not yet using it, Twitter is a communications gateway that asks the question: “What are you doing now?” Users can answer and hear their friends’ answers via SMS, via IM, or on a webpage.

Twitter Tips the Tuna — On Wednesday, Twitter tipped the tuna. By that I mean it started peaking. Adoption amongst the people I know seemed to double immediately, an apparent tipping point. It hasn’t jumped the shark, and probably won’t until Steven Colbert covers this messaging of the mundane.

Yahoo! BarTab: Monday, March 12, 6:30–9:30 pm at Light Bar. The big ‘hoo! and what seems like every little company they ever acquired are throwing a bash at the fresh newish club at Congress and Fourth, featuring an open bar, munchies and music by The Little Ones. “After we reach capacity,” they say, “admittance will be determined by Feats of Strength.” We’re pretty sure that’s the name of Andy Baio’s band. Why you’ll wanna go: Ask anyone who was at last year’s Yahoo! party that busted the seams of Iron Cactus. This’ll be the talk of Tuesday. Also, if you’ve written something that uses tags, you might leave with a check.

It used to be the mantra of the first morning at South by Southwest: “Where are all the cool parties?” Everybody would hit town knowing of one or two soirees where the free booze flowed and the gratis chow was spread out on tables, but they’d have to ask around to get a more complete picture.

Nowadays, the party scene is revealed more than a month before the first Shiner Bock is cracked — and then overrated — by an out-of-towner. Internet sites such as showlistaustin.com,donewaiting.com and austinist.com collect party info and spread the news, giving readers weeks to get in good with the party hosts, to get that all-important invite.

Here are some of the things we’ve culled from those sites and brooklynvegan.com. Many are free and open to the public:

More SXSW

This years love fest of pop culture had the usual ups and downs, highs and lows. I watching this years show from my palatial estate in Cedar Creek on TiVo.

Here are some impressions I jotted down on my craplet sitting in the rocking chair.

The Police are back and they belted out Roxanne, then it was mostly downhill except for the Dixie Chicks and the “who died last year segment”.

The once shameful Chicks have gone from being scorned as unpatriot to singing their anti-war song in prime time on the big show.

What’s with Justin Timberlake and the “Blair Witch” camera that he did a youtube video with during his performance of “What Goes Around Comes Around”? Nice nose.

Dylan edged out Neil Young for best solo performance in the night’s most tragic snub.

Shakira shook those hips.

“Gnarls Barkley” dresses as an airline pilot during his rendition of “Crazy”

Ludacris gives special thanks to Oprah and Bill O’Reilly?

Natalie Maines quotes the Simpsons bully upon winning best country album “ha ha!” Maines, “a lot of people just turned their tvs off right now. Continuing in the tradition of blurting out whatever’s on her mind, good for her! Good for Austin!

I didn’t like seeing Ray Benson take a back seat to Carrie Underwood in the Bob Wills. One blogger said she should get the award for “pretend artist doing something classic to try and prove you’re legit . . . this would be a great time for Jesus to take the wheel and steer her out of here.”

Ornette Coleman is still living.

And finally there was James Brown dancing in the folks who died last year montage.

“After 26 years, you know the drill,” says the Chronicle. “This is your chance to duct-tape the critics’ mouths shut and speak up about Austin music. Not sure who to vote for? Turn on the radio, drop into the local record store, or head to the clubs tonight. Your favorite band is probably playing.” And give some consideration to our Austin favorite singer/songwriter Amy Cook.

Watch the video podcast athttp://touroftexas.com/podcasts/sjhcycle.mpgChris Brewer, Discovery Channel “primary journalist”, does a video podcast on the outlook for this year’s Tour de France, the Discovery team with Ivan Basso, the Flying Forehead, and his Team Hotel San Jose. Barry Lee and Todd Reid head up Team San Jose. Today is Barry’s 42nd birthday and the team is showning pedaling off to South Austin for a 3 hour ride. “The Discovery team is looking great with Ivan Basso, says Chris. Lance is riding with the team and grooming Basso as his successor. We takea look at the Madone 5.9 SL with the Powercontrol V with “more information than a man needs to know”. We also talk with several other Team San Jose members, which numbers over 300 members.The interview takes place in front of Downtown Jo’s, which is the site of tonight’s moveon.org event and showing of “An Inconvenient Truth”.from http://teamhotelsanjose.com

Team Hotel San Jose is a new kind of racing team and sports club, led by athletes who are dedicated to serving the community by working with disadvantaged and at-risk youth, developing the skills of beginning and intermediate cyclists, and cultivating the most incredible regional racing team you’ve ever seen. The core team members are a motivated group of professional and ex-professional cyclists, cycling enthusiasts, and triathletes, who ride with respect for all, regardless of experience. We welcome road cyclists and mountain bikers, runners and multi-sport athletes, men and women, and girls and boys.

Jan and Neil Cronk put on a birthday party for about half a dozen folks, me included, at their home in North Austin. Neil is a talented painter whose work appears at many restaurants and galleries around town. Here’s today’s video podcast of that event. Shown below is the paiting of Neil’s that hangs in our living room in Cedar Creek.

Our houseguests for the last week have been Bob Nagy and Karen Holcomb from Hot Springs, Arkansas and we have had many nights of music and storytelling and this is a podcast of one of those nights. It begins, appropriately, with Bob’s rendition of “Moscow Nights” on his new violin-like instrument.

The Longhorns lost their second game in a row this weekend to the Aggies, so their potential national title has crumbled in to an invite to one of the lesser bowls, maybe they’ll play Arkansas.

In the coming weeks I’m going to be recapping my experiences at the Texas Book Festival. If you want a sneak preview, here are all my podcasts from that event. A note of warning, I haven’t compressed the videos yet and haven’t added intros to the podcasts. So they’re pretty raw. But I’m guessing you’ll still have fun listening and watching these. The numbers are the sizes in kilobytes (kb.)

AMARC 9, the 9th World Conference and General Assembly of AMARC, will take place in Amman, Jordan from the 11 to the 17 of November 2006.

The Internet Jordanian pioneer and FM broadcaster Ammannet ( http://www.ammannet.net ) will host the conference in partnership with media and journalists groups from Jordan and Palestine.

AMARC 9 will bring together up to 300 or 400 community broadcasters from more than 110 countries and all regions of the world.

The ninth gathering of community radio broadcasters will take a week and consist first of all in a world conference that will allow participants to analyze and explore the challenges facing community radios. For more information on the going process kindly visit: http://www.evaluation.amarc.org

Voting and associate members of AMARC will then meet for the 9th AMARC World General Assembly to receive the reports of the International Board, to define the Amman Declaration of Community Radio Broadcasters, to adopt the strategic plan 2006-2010, to elect the new international board of Directors and adopt resolutions to tackle the challenges facing the community radio movement.

Continuing with a series I started yesterday as foreplay to SXSW in March, thereâ€™s another KLRU special on the nostalgic drag hangout and restaurant, Les Amis. I spent a lot of time there. OK. Call me a slacker. One of my exes worked there. I was there for the last day celebration. Les Amis was part of the axis of slackerville, consisting also of the Kenny and Joniâ€™s Omlettry and the Magnolia Cafe.

Hereâ€™s from the KLRU site cited above.

If LizLambert’s snappy hotel do-over and its resulting documentary film confirms that not all of old Austin should be considered sacred ground, then Nancy Higgins’ elegiac, heartfelt Viva Les Amis is the flipside of that particularly well-thumbed coinage.

Using footage filmed at and interviews with former employees, regulars, and assorted hangers-on of the late, lamented Les Amis Cafe (now, cruel irony, a Starbucks), Higgins’ film both mourns the passing of the UT area’s artistic and intellectual (and drunken) nexus and celebrates the plainly odd notion that a Parisian-style sidewalk cafe-cum-lifestyle could blossom so deep in the heart of Texas in the first place.

As for this third season of SXSW Presents, festival producer Matt Dentler notes, “The big difference is that we are expanding the episodes to include not just the films themselves but related conversations and panels with the filmakers and figures in the local film and arts community who will be hanging out, talking, and just kind of sharing their thoughts on the films.
The idea of this whole show in the first place was to try and bottle what an experience at a film festival â€“ particularly South by Southwest â€“ would be like. But on your television.”

Times for episode premieres are 9pm, unless otherwise noted. In January, BBQ: A Texas Love Story, Pedal, and two shorts programs will air, but dates and times are TBD.

“Some of you who are new to Austin may not know of SoCo’s previous life as a drug and crime infested sector of the city. The Last Days of the San Jose chronicles the transformation of the little motel from prostitute and junkie hangout to chic and trendy boutique hotel. The renovation of the San Jose helped spark the revival of South Congress into the fashionable neighborhood it has become today.

The movie will be showing tonight at the Alamo downtown. Afterwards we recommend heading over to the San Jose and having some drinks in their enjoyable outdoor patio.”

LAST DAYS OF THE SAN JOSE(D. Liz Lambert, 2005) LAST DAYS OF THE SAN JOSE is a documentary about the San Jose Motel, a notoriously seedy joint on S. Congress Ave. in Austin, which Liz Lambert bought with the idea of tearing it down to build a cool boutique hotel. But it took her two years to get a bank to loan her the money, and in the meantime she decided to manage the old motel in order to make ends meet. She used a digital video camera to document many of the colorful characters and odd experiences she encountered during that time, which were cut into this documentary. If you have lived in Austin for many years, Last Days of the San Jose is a kind of loopy Valentine to the days when S. Congress was more disreputable, before anyone ever thought about using the abominably pretentious term “SoCo” to describe the area. (Jette, Celluloid Eyes)

The Austin City Limits Festival had near perfect weather for the 3 days of concerts by over 150 bands in Zilker Park. Watch my pictures and even some mini-movies of Tom Petty’s closing act on day 3. I think you’ll enjoy these slide shows of the event.

The U.S. national soccer team recently embarassed itself in the World Cup. During the Olympics, U.S. athletes regularly get beat in certain sports that, like soccer, are taken much more seriously in other countries than in ours.

So why have Americans done so well in the Tour de France?

American cyclists have won 10 of the past 20 TdF’s—well, two American cyclists: Greg Lemond (1986, 1989, 1990) and Lance Armstrong (1999-2005). And Floyd Landis, after a mind-blowing ride yesterday, may win this year’s. (Landis, btw, is a fascinating guy, who’s been riding with a degenerative hip; see Daniel Coyle’s recent profile and, even better, read Coyle’s book Lance Armstrong’s War.) And other American riders have been finishing very well in the TdF in recent years.

If you want to read a great cycling bloggers rundown, check out Martin Dugard’s blog, here’s a tidbit from that blog entry:

“That he did. Per his style, Landis didn’t explode away from the peloton in the manner of most breakaways. Rather, he gradually left a yellow jersey group containing Oscar Pereiro, Cadel Evans, Andreas Kloden, and Denis Menchov. He tiptoes away like a cat burglar, as if afraid of drawing attention to himself. Landis then began an 80-mile individual time trial, constantly dousing himself with water on this humid mountain afternoon, at one point pulling so far ahead that he was the virtual leader of the race.” . . .

Ah… but when Floyd crossed the line today, fist thrust into the air and a scowl on his face, Amber Landis jumped up and down. “Oh, baby!” she screamed, fighting back tears. Only this time they were tears of joy. And, if I am to be honest here, I was a little misty, too…

So tomorrow the stage is a little on the downhill side, a 120-mile run from Morzine down into Macon. Teams might try to take a little bite out of Landis, hoping to gain a few seconds on him before Saturday’s time trial. With Pereiro (with whom Landis ate breakfast this morning, just the two of them) 30 seconds in front and Sastre 18 seconds up, Landis is close enough that a powerful time-trial Saturday will likely win him the Tour.”

“I am here to win the Tour de France” was the reply given when he was asked to comment on his amazing comeback in today’s stage of the tour de france at the podium. At the start of the last mountain stage, the favourites for the yellow jersey were, the current holder Oscar Perreiro, Menchov, Carlos Sastre, Dressel and a few others. But Floyd Landis wasn’t even counted as a contender anymore.

At yesterdays mountain stage, Landis lost 10 minutes to Perreiro for an overall deficit of 8 minutes.

Coming into the final mountain stage today, no one expected Landis to be in the top 5 fnish let alone the maillot jaune (yellow jersey), but after todays incredible breakaway from the peloton, Landis managed to build up a 7 minute lead which he held on till the finish of the 200.5 km mountain stage with steep ascents amounting to upto 10 degrees in the final 20 kms.

Today’s stage was an awesome comeback by Landis, who had been written off by the Frech Press sometime back, when he held the yellow jersey, as some one who wasnt really worthy of it.

Like the OLN announcers said, Landis seemed like a man possessed. He didn’t know what went wrong yesterday having cracked in the final 20 kms losing a huge 10 minutes. He made no excuses and today he was the man to reckon.

As of today Perreiro leads in the general classification, with Sastre 12 seconds behind and Landis 30 seconds back. So who’s it going to be? Saturday’s time trial should tell the tale of this year’s Tour de France.

Lance Armstrong emceed the event and did a great job as a deadpan comedian, proving that Saturday Night Live wasn’t just a fluke. He pointed out Austin’s Mathew McConaughey in the audience as the “sexiest man alive” and then chided the audience that you don’t all have to look at him, we know what he looks like, then he motioned to Gyllenhaal, the co-star of “Brokeback Mountain,” and said “Up here Jake, eyes front!” Answering his own question “What am I doing here” he said he told the producers “Are you kidding, I would give my left ball” to do the gig.

“Lance Armstrong raised eyebrows – and got laughs – as host of Wednesday night’s ESPY Awards, where he cracked crude jokes about new best friends Jake Gyllenhaal and Matthew McConaughey.” – People

The actors, who’ve been photographed recently clad in Spandex and biking with Armstrong, were in the audience at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre. Armstrong, in a reference to Gyllenhaal’s Brokeback Mountain role, asked why Gyllenhaal was sitting in the front when Armstrong thought he preferred to be “in the rear”. . . Of the theater, people.” – People

Armstrong took a punch at the World Cup runner-up French Soccer team, saying “all their players tested positive … for being assholes.” Part of the Lance Love Hate French thing.

People: At the afterparty at the Mondrian Hotel’s Skybar, Armstrong, McConaughey and Gyllenhaal hung out with actors Cole Hauser and Matthew Perry, while Arizona Cardinals footballer Matt Leinart stuck with Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo. Other guests included Ashley Judd, Brandy, Venus and Serena Williams and Kiefer Sutherland.

And there were the young Afghan girls who were honored by the ESPYs with the Arthur Ashe Courage Award for defying Taliban authorities to play soccer.

Alp d’Huez – the first major climbs of the Tour de Francepicture left – “No dad, I beat you by 30 minutes on Alp D’Huez, not 20 minutes.” a tour watcher at TourWatch 2005 at Central Market. You’ll see more of this little scene in the world premiere of our upcoming video podcast of TourWatch 2005 on July 30th. We’re not at Central Market this year watching the Tour, but we have video of last year’s huge event that we’ll publish online.

So today is Alp D’Huez and I’m watching on OLN. This is Floyd Landis chance to put his stamp on the Tour de France. But there are many challengers. Usually, the Tour the winner of today’s stage goes on to win the Tour de France.

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Lance Amstrong News on our Blog – The “docureality” show produced by the Discovery Networks Travel Channel will air on Thursday night, Dec 22 on channel 58 (Grande Communications) and channel 33 (Time Warner).

Many local Austin media outlets carried coverage of this event. On the last day of the Tour de France several thousand people showed up to cheer Lance on and sign several giant yellow cards that the Outdoor Life Network brought to the event.

Here’s the email from producer Bill Delano about the event

Hey Ya´ll~ Tune in tomorrow night for my first film, “Chasing Lance: a Fans Story”!!! Its a great show, was a thrilling adventure and will forever stand as testament to what two friends can do with a camcorder, computer, and a dream.

Here’s the TV Guide sum up: Join five Americans on an emotion packed thrill ride as they chase the Tour all around France supporting their hero in his seventh and final ride. These are true fanatics who do far more than vacation, they redefine what it means to be a true Fan.

Let everyone know and check it out on the Travel Channel on Thursday, December 22 at 8 and 11pm EST (7 and 10 pm CST).

Listen to the podcast http://austincast.com/podcasts/a6031406.bsideberkowitz.mp3 I am never wrong. That’s what the t shirt says. If I get caught by bside wearing it in one of the lines for a film at SXSW I might win a video ipod. These guys “get it”; every year there’s a standout at the SXSW trade show and these guys are clearing in first place this year. They have a great idea and it is full of potential for growth. Here’s the skinny. bside approaches film festivals and offers them free websites. And the websites are visually appealing, full of features and tools and have a great personal calendar that film goers can use to organize the films they want to see. What’s in it for bside? They get to cherry pick the best films and sign them up for a film deal. You see, they’re first and foremost a film distributor and they choose their films by watching the websites they create and follow the buzz. So far they’ve done the Austin Film Festival and they have several more lined up. If you’re a film festival, watch out. These guys are headed your way. If you’re a film maker looking for a distributor, you might want to find ways to send your fans to their websites and get them to create buzz. There is so much potential in this project for the fans of film festivals. I can see these guys expanding this concept with podcasts, videos, interviews, online polls and reviews, blogs, and more. Best of show at SXSW Interactive. No doubt. bside.com